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ATP Helps USW Build and Share Valuable Milling and Baking Technical Support

Adding value to U.S. wheat export supplies requires strong technical support and broad knowledge of the milling, baking, and processing needed to produce hundreds of unique food products. With 11 professional flour millers and bakers on staff, U.S. Wheat Associates (USW) uses technical support to add value and create a differential advantage for U.S. wheat classes over competing supplies that often cost less.

With additional funding through the Agricultural Trade Promotion (ATP) program, and help from its educational partners, USW created and implemented a multi-year activity to improve its already strong technical support. In February 2022 and in March 2023, USW held “Core Competency Training” sessions for technical and marketing staff from all its overseas offices. The objective was to help USW become more competent to help milling and baking customers grow their businesses using imported U.S. wheat.

Image shows people in an industrial baking lab discussing production and quality of baguette bread made with U.S. wheat as part of a technical support training program.

At the Wheat Marketing Center in Portland, Ore., in 2022, USW technical and marketing staff gathered to “learn so they can teach” overseas customers.

Building Core Competency

The in-depth sessions and discussions give newer USW technical and marketing specialists the chance to learn from USW’s senior experts working in distant regions. Exchanging information and techniques about different flour and wheat food products creates the chance to develop new product opportunities in new markets. In addition, the Core Competency Training workshops have given USW the shared knowledge to help solve problems and develop more successful training and technical support for customers.

“A clear knowledge of the customer’s business is vitally important to opening the door to U.S. wheat farmers as valued suppliers,” said Peter Lloyd, one of USW’s senior technical managers and a recognized global flour milling expert. “I believe the Core Competency Training has improved our ability to bring the greatest value where it makes the most difference – on the bottom-line profit for a supply chain manager, miller, or baker.”

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Baking Workshops Build Demand for U.S. Hard Red Winter Wheat in Colombia

In Colombia, USDA Foreign Agricultural Service cooperator U.S. Wheat Associates (USW) is helping increase demand for flour made from U.S. hard red winter (HRW) wheat by investing in technical support for commercial bakeries using funding from the Market Access Program (MAP).

Demand for better quality baked goods is growing in Colombia, with increasing disposable consumer income in urban areas like the capital Bogota. To offset traditional preferences for Canadian spring wheat as the main source of flour in Colombia, USW is following a strategy to conduct artisan style bread baking seminars. The processes they are teaching produce better quality bread that appeals to consumers and require flour with more HRW, which helps bakeries reduce input costs compared to flour from higher priced Canadian spring wheat flour.

For example, USW contracted with baking consultant Didier Rosada to conduct a full week of baking and technical consulting in August 2017 at a large commercial bakery chain in Bogota that produces over 117 bread varieties, two pastry product lines and more than 60 à la carte dishes in its restaurants. The company found the demonstrations so appealing, it immediately asked suppliers to provide the HRW flour blend that Rosada used in his seminars. As a direct result of this MAP-funded export market development activity, one of the company’s flour supplier imported a relatively small volume of HRW in November 2017. Immediate sales of that flour convinced the mill to change its artisan bread flour blend from a base of 80 percent Canadian Western Red Spring wheat to 100% HRW in 2017 and it became the regular supplier to the bakery chain.

In marketing years 2014/15 and 2015/16 (June to May), Colombia imported 430,000 metric tons (MT) of HRW. The technical support strategy there has helped increase HRW commercial sales to 977,000 MT in 2016/17 and 2017/18, supporting U.S. wheat farmers from Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas, Colorado and Nebraska. These exports represent total revenue of about $217 million.

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Nurturing Global Recognition for U.S. Wheat Baking Industry Expertise

Bakers around the world consider flour produced from U.S. wheat to be consistently high quality and versatile. That reputation is earned largely because wheat farmers grow excellent crops and invest in export market development through U.S. Wheat Associates (USW). In turn, USW marketing and technical experts work hard to leverage funding from the USDA Foreign Agricultural Service Market Access Program (MAP) and the Foreign Market Development (FMD) program to serve the world’s wheat buyers and wheat food processors.

One of those experts is Bakery Consultant Roy Chung who, from a base in Singapore, has represented U.S. wheat for more than 40 years. He has consistently added value to U.S. wheat imports by introducing quality bread processing to the milling and baking industry across South Asia in conjunction with his USW colleagues and training program collaborators.

The association of such expertise and service with U.S. wheat’s reputation overseas is so well regarded that in 2016, Lesaffre, a leading French yeast and fermentation products company, asked Chung and USW to collaborate on an innovative publication called “Sandwich Bread in Words. A Glossary of Sensory Terms” for bakers.

Lasaffre describes the January 2017 book as a tool “to formalize a common vocabulary about sandwich bread, drawing on different cultures and incorporating a repeatable assessment method … to create a bridge to connect experts with consumers.”

Lasaffre’s baking ingredients and flour produced from U.S. hard red spring (HRS) and hard red winter (HRW) wheat classes, are ideally suited for the high quality “sponge and dough” system bread products that Chung describes in the book: “The internal characteristics, like flavor, grain, texture, taste, mouthfeel … will determine if the customer returns for another loaf. The vested interest of the baker is to make the best possible looking and tasting product with the best ingredients available.”

It may be difficult to correlate specific export sales changes with the respected knowledge Chung and other USW colleagues demonstrate. Over the long-term, however, it is an ideal example of the power of farmer support and MAP and FMD funding to help create sustained demand for high quality U.S. wheat in more than 100 overseas markets, even when that wheat is higher priced.

Total annual U.S. wheat exports to South Asian countries stood at nearly 3 million metric tons (MMT) in marketing year 2008/09, but has steadily increased since then. In marketing year 2016/17, U.S. wheat exports to the region reached 5.5 MMT.

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Market Development Helps Build Future Demand for U.S. Wheat in China

Euromonitor International has predicted that sales of baked goods in the People’s Republic of China will increase 22.5% by 2021. Domestic wheat is less than optimal in flour production and quality for these baked goods, so imports are needed. USDA Foreign Agricultural Service cooperator U.S. Wheat Associates (USW) is using Market Access Program (MAP) and Foreign Market Development (FMD) program funds to meet that demand by helping the Chinese baking industry tackle technical challenges to produce world class baked goods using imported U.S. wheat.

USW applied FMD funds to hire Dr. Ting Liu in September 2016 as Technical Specialist to bolster USW’s technical ability to demonstrate U.S. wheat performance qualities for new baked goods. One of Dr. Liu’s first projects, supported by MAP funds, was to help the Sino American Baking School (SABS) in Guangdong Province offer consultation to baking companies that have some experience using flour made from U.S. wheat. The long-term goal is to help them expand new specialty items such as sourdough, frozen dough and whole grain products. In marketing year 2016/17, three Chinese companies requested the technical assistance from senior specialists currently teaching at, or recently retired from, SABS. USW and SABS are strongly associated with excellent instruction and product development, so USW’s support is also helping build stronger reputations for both the school and for U.S. wheat.

Growing demand for baked goods and interest in healthy, whole grain products represents good opportunity to increase Chinese demand specifically for high-protein U.S. hard red spring (HRS) wheat. In May 2017, Dr. Liu represented USW at the 2017 Sino-Foreign Whole Grain Industry Development Experts Forum in Shanghai. Joining 22 experts in food processing, nutrition and health, financial investment, policy and marketing, Dr. Liu actively participated in the forum as one of 10 industry guest speakers. Drawing from USW’s activities in several other countries, Dr. Liu’s presentation focused “International Whole Grain Development,” which provided guidelines and references to the development of whole grains products in China.

China’s U.S. wheat imports can swing up or down with government policy decisions. However, total U.S. import volume doubled in 2016/17 to more than 1.6 million metric tons (MMT) compared to almost 880,000 MT in 2015/16. A closer look shows China’s annual import of HRS wheat grown in Minnesota, North Dakota, Montana and South Dakota has steadily increased the past five years from 475,000 MT in 2012/13 to more than 1.1 MMT in 2016/17. That is the second highest volume of HRS imports in the world that year.

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Reintroducing U.S. Wheat to Angola’s Expanding Flour Milling Industry

The West African nation of Angola is making good progress in its desire to improve food security for a rapidly growing population, currently estimated at 24.5 million people. The Angolan government believes that building its own food processing capacity is a crucial part of that effort to help reduce the cost of importing food, while creating jobs for the Angolan people and preserving foreign exchange. Angola currently imports an estimated 800,000 MT of processed wheat flour from various origins to produce popular baguettes and Portuguese style bread, but the country was not always dependent on flour imports.

USDA Foreign Agricultural Service cooperator U.S. Wheat Associates (USW) introduced hard red winter (HRW) wheat to Angolan milling companies in 1993 through the USDA PL 480 Title 1 monetization program. The industry processed a significant volume of HRW and Angolan bakers very much liked the quality of the HRW flour to make baguettes and Portuguese-style bread. When the Title 1 program ended in 2001, donated supplies of U.S. HRW were no longer available, and the Angolan government turned to subsidizing imported flour.

Recently improved economic prospects and the government’s new focus created an opportunity to begin increasing flour milling capacity. To build on its legacy of success, USW invested funds from the Market Access Program (MAP) for a part-time consultant to provide timely and accurate information about U.S. HRW to Angolan flour millers, bakers, grain traders and government officials.

In 2016, USW met with representatives of an Angolan flour mill that plans to expand its capacity beginning in 2017 and another mill that planned to re-open a mill that had been closed for 10 years. Wiese proposed using the Quality Samples Program (QSP) to demonstrate the value and utility of U.S. HRW to the mills’ staff and customers. Under QSP, USW coordinated the shipping of two separate HRW milling wheat samples from Kansas through an export terminal in Norfolk, Va., to the Angolan flour mills in late January 2017. After milling, analysis of the flour showed the HRW wheat met industry standards and produced good quality baked products, including the flour produced by the re-opened mill. With competitive prices and expanded storage, those mill managers say HRW will be strongly considered for import.

In a separate QSP activity, USW’s local representatives and staff from its West Coast Office in Portland, OR, worked through the North American Millers’ Association (NAMA) to purchase and mill HRW wheat and ship the flour to an Angola food processing company to demonstrate its use in pasta production. The U.S. Ambassador to Angola, Helena M. La Lime, and representatives from USW and NAMA celebrated the arrival of this shipment in a ceremony at the processing company on Feb. 28, 2017. Amb. La Lime highlighted the great potential U.S. wheat has in supporting Angola’s milling and food industries and said the United States “supports Angola’s efforts to diversify the economy through industrialization and increased local production of consumer goods.”

U.S. wheat farmers are pleased that their wheat has the potential to help improve economic conditions in Angola. Through trade service, technical support and training funded by wheat farmers and USDA, our organization tries to build lasting relationships with our valued customers around the world. And, assuming prices remain competitive in the changing world wheat trade, we hope that our support will lead to increased demand for HRW to produce great bread, pasta and other wheat food products for the Angolan people.

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A Legacy of Cooperation – U.S. Wheat Farmers, FAS and Taiwan’s Milling and Baking Industry

In the early 1960s, U.S. wheat farmers reached out through Western Wheat Associates (WWA) to build new partnerships with Taiwan. After many visits, WWA opened an office in Taipei in 1966. With cooperation, forward-thinking and much success over the years and with support from U.S. wheat farmers and USDA Foreign Agricultural Service export market development programs, USW has served Taiwan’s flour milling, technical education and wheat foods organizations for 50 years.

The Taiwan Flour Mills Association (TFMA) and USW forged a uniquely productive relationship. U.S. wheat farmers helped TFMA create the Taiwan Wheat Food Promotion Council, which established a baking school in Taipei. As U.S. wheat farmers continued to provide the highest quality wheat, USW continued to provide service and support that helped TFMA promote wholesome, nutritious wheat foods to Taiwan’s consumers. This trusted relationship still allows TFMA to confidently import almost all its wheat from the United States. Taiwan is on average the sixth largest market for U.S. wheat. In each of the past three marketing years, Taiwan’s flour millers purchased about 1.0 million metric tons of U.S. hard red spring (HRS), hard red winter (HRW) and soft white (SW) wheat currently valued at about $250 million.

The early spirit of cooperation with millers extended to building a vital wheat foods industry. Training at the baking school set the standards for an industry that wanted to produce the finest quality wheat food in the world. When millers and bakers raised the money to expand in 1984, the school became the China Wheat (now Grains) Products Research and Development Institute with an added focus on developing new wheat foods and demand continued to grow.

Members of the Taipei Bakery Association (TBA) and bakers across the country have always produced consumer goods of the highest quality. With a permanent office in Taipei, U.S. wheat farmers quickly reached out to TBA to join TFMA and educational leaders in developing and promoting healthy bakery products. Together they sponsored baking courses and contests, consumer outreach, school lunch programs, supported by trade service and technical support from USW.

The ultimate reward for so many years of hard work can now be measured on an international scale. Taiwan’s industry took the world by surprise by sending a team for the first time to the prestigious World Bakery Cup in 2008 that earned a bronze medal. Another bronze followed in 2012 and in 2016, Taiwan’s baking team won a silver medal. On a more practical level, consumption of wheat foods in Taiwan has now surpassed that of rice, a remarkable achievement reflecting the power of cooperation.

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Trade Service, Technical Support Protect Soft White Wheat Exports to Korea

Perceptions of wheat flour quality can be difficult to change. Korean flour millers, for example, traditionally judge U.S. soft white (SW) wheat quality based on #1 Grade and a very low protein specification. Unfortunately, two years of hot, dry growing conditions in Washington and Oregon severely reduced the low-protein SW supply and spurred a price barrier to sales. Through trade service and technical support funded by the Market Access Program (MAP) and the Foreign Market Development (FMD) program, FAS cooperator U.S. Wheat Associates (USW) was able to show the millers that they could import higher protein SW at a much lower cost and still meet customer demand. In turn, this effort ended a significant decline in imports.

SW wheat is ideal for the cake, cracker and confection products that make up a large part of Korea’s flour consumption. Between marketing years 2013/14 and 2015/16, USW took a multi-tiered approach to maintaining this important market:

  • Representatives based in Seoul convinced millers to use Solvent Retention Capacity (SRC) analysis, rather than only using protein specifications, to measure SW flour performance.
  • Working with state wheat commissions, USW support staff in the United States shipped samples of the more abundant higher protein SW to Korea. Technical staff performed the SRC analysis on flour milled from the samples and successfully demonstrated equivalent performance.
  • The next step was to prove the SRC analysis and higher protein SW flour performance to downstream bakery and confectionery customers in a seminar supervised by USW South Asia Bakery Consultant Roy Chung. The largest commercial bakery in Korea saw the opportunities and purchased an SRC analyzer.
  • Finally, USW helped large flour millers understand how they could adjust grade and protein tender specifications. Two large millers did change their specifications and tendered for SW with slightly higher protein levels, which helped reduce import costs. The Korean Flour Millers Association also relaxed some of its grade requirements and received a discount of $5 per metric ton from the trade.

In marketing year 2013/14, before the challenge of higher protein levels appeared, Korean millers imported an estimated 731,000 metric tons (MT) of SW worth about $212 million. As the cost of very low protein SW increased, millers cut back on imports while learning about alternatives from USW. Total SW exports fell to about 538,000 MT in 2014/15.

Armed with new information and support from their customers, these millers were able to slightly increase SW imports in 2015/16 to about 565,000 MT, returning value to the U.S. wheat supply chain and farmers in Washington, Oregon and Idaho.

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Wheat Quality Improvement Programs Support U.S. Wheat Value Proposition

U.S. wheat is seldom the least-cost option for importers, but it has a reputation for quality that adds critical value. Recognizing that quality starts with the seeds farmers sow, USDA Foreign Agricultural Service (FAS) cooperator U.S. Wheat Associates (USW) gathers feedback from its overseas customers that is shared with the scientists who breed new wheat varieties at home.

With partial funding from the Foreign Market Development program, for example, USW and state wheat commissions in Oregon, Washington, North Dakota and Minnesota organized a Wheat Quality Improvement Team (WQIT) of four university wheat breeders to meet with customers in Japan, Korea and Thailand April 18 to 26, 2015.

The breeders heard what wheat buyers, flour millers and wheat food producers like and do not like about U.S. soft white (SW) and hard red spring (HRS) wheat quality. At the same meetings, the breeders informed these customers about their work to improve the quality and yield potential of newly released varieties. This was the fourth WQIT led by USW. In 2004, a similar trip was made to Asia, followed by Latin America in 2009, and Europe and North Africa in 2010.

The team also took part in an Overseas Variety Analysis (OVA) program event at the UFM Baking School in Bangkok, Thailand. Through OVA, USW creates direct comparisons between U.S. varieties and competing wheat supplies. Working with the Wheat Quality Council, USDA’s Agricultural Research Service, state universities and wheat commissions, USW selects new varieties to mill and sent to overseas cooperators in top markets who analyze their quality in end-use projects and compare them to standard control flours.

Feedback from the OVA program and this year’s WQIT will bring results home to the farm. The next step for the WQIT is to apply the feedback and observations to research and wheat breeding programs, as well as share insights with other breeders, wheat producers and invested state wheat commissions. The OVA data will be shared with state wheat commissions and the Wheat Quality Council to set quality targets for breeding research and to develop recommended variety lists for farmers.

These activities create a primary basis for continual improvement in U.S. wheat quality that in turn supports import demand each year. USW used the Foreign Market Development program help fund the recent WQIT and the Market Access Program to engage customers and breeders through the OVA program.

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Spreading Success through Service: USW Helps Establish Noodle Market in Cameroon

U.S. Wheat Associates (USW), a cooperator with USDA’s Foreign Agricultural Service (FAS) built a large and loyal market for U.S. hard red winter (HRW) wheat in Nigeria through trade service and technical assistance. Success in Nigeria is now a model for nearby markets like Cameroon where a food company is now building demand for instant noodles.

By importing an annual average of 2.36 million metric tons of U.S. HRW the five years between 2009/10 and 2014/15, Nigeria was the leading HRW buyer in the world. While most HRW is milled for bread flour, to reach such levels, USW also helped establish HRW as the preferred wheat for Asian noodle flour in Nigeria.

As it continued to support Nigerian millers and food processors, USW used Emerging Market Program (EMP) funding to invite prospective buyers from neighboring Cameroon and other countries to learn more about the success enjoyed by their Nigerian colleagues. After meeting with Nigerian flour millers at USW’s request, a major food manufacturer decided to produce instant noodle products in his country.

To foster that desire, USW brought company representatives to Portland, Ore., to attend Introductory and Advanced Instant Noodle Technology & Processing short courses at the Wheat Marketing Center. USW also provided in-plant technical support and trade service information. The business owner credits each level of support from EMP-funded USW activities for giving the company the opportunity to introduce instant noodles and see rapid growth in demand.

Starting with about 9,000 metric tons of Nigerian-milled HRW flour, the company soon needed a local supplier. The outcome of activities in Cameroon, funded through the EMP, was 55,900 metric tons of new HRW exports over two marketing years. The business owner was so positive about potential growth, he planned to renovate a closed flour mill to import and mill HRW for instant noodle production.

USW continues to promote HRW use in instant noodle production in Nigeria, Cameroon, Angola, Ghana, Ivory Coast, Equatorial Guinea, Gabon and Senegal. It is expected that current and incremental HRW exports will benefit wheat farmers in Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas, Colorado, Nebraska and South Dakota.

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Market Development Funding Helps Position U.S. Wheat as a Better Choice in Vietnam

With Vietnamese wheat imports projected to increase 40 percent in the next 10 years, USDA Foreign Agricultural Service (FAS) cooperator U.S. Wheat Associates (USW) is leveraging export market development funds to position U.S. wheat as the high quality, high value choice for milling and baking operations.

USW utilizes Market Access Program (MAP) and Foreign Market Development (FMD) funding, supplemented with checkoff dollars from state wheat commissions, to work directly with large volume millers and bakers in Vietnam to promote U.S. hard red spring (HRS) wheat and hard red winter (HRW) and develop better end-products with cake plants by using U.S. soft white (SW) wheat.

In June 2014, for example, USW conducted a Contracting for Value Workshop to help flour mill purchasing managers select the right classes and characteristics to extract the most benefit from U.S. wheat imports. Four mills in Vietnam now report using strategies presented in the workshop to help adjust contract specifications based on annual quality variations. One mill said USW’s trade servicing helped persuade them to include U.S. HRS in their long-term business plan and increased purchases of U.S. wheat from 9,600 MT in 2012 to 78,000 MT in 2014, a substantial increase in revenue. An additional procurement workshop in April 2014 convinced another mill to purchase 44,500 MT of U.S. wheat (25,000 MT U.S. HRS and 20,000 U.S. SW) even though the mill had typically purchased Canadian wheat at a lower price.

Also in 2014, USW continued encouraging cake plants to switch from Australian standard white (ASW) to U.S. SW to increase cake volume and extend product shelf life. After an educational seminar and in-plant consultations, seven cake plants in Vietnam now use 100 percent U.S. SW in their production of extended shelf life cakes.

As a result, Vietnam imported 243,000 MT of U.S. wheat in 2014/15. That is well above the 140,000 MT imported in 2013/14. Overall, for the past five marketing years, U.S. wheat sales have exceeded 100,000 MT per year, up from the previous decade average of 32,000 MT per year. That return comes from a much smaller investment in MAP and FMD funds over the past few years and a similar level of support from state wheat commissions.

USW’s long-term market development strategy in Vietnam is establishing a clear preference for U.S. HRS and SW wheat —all at a time when USDA predicts Vietnam’s wheat import demand to continue growing. The benefits will continue to return significant value to farmers and related industries in Washington, Oregon, Idaho, Montana, North Dakota and Minnesota.

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